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Buy Handmade - Get Your Badge

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!! The snow came yesterday. It has made some treacherous roads but it was so beautiful. It made it seem like Christmas. I have been knitting, knitting, knitting, knitting, and knitting some more. Almost everyone is getting handmade gifts by me others are receiving gifts made by others, but I am taking my handmade pledge seriously. I did even before the pledge. I urge everyone I know to do the same. Support your local artists. I tell ya I live in the middle of no where and there are plenty of options, even here. My nieces' are keeping my life exciting. I have one having a baby, Then I have another one having a baby, and now I have one moving to Norway so her Husband can receive his PHD. What a fantastic opportunity and honor that is. But all I can really think about is Norwegian knitting.



Call me crazy (most already do) I read all these blogs and they are about family, family life, mine is knitting and the psy-cosies that I suffer. I love my boy's, they are everything to me, but hey, so is my knitting. The giver of all escapes from reality. The mother of all imagination, freedom and if no one See's it it can still be the master piece that it never was. All mine, all consuming, totally gratifying, and what more could you ask for. I dreamt about Angelina fiber last night. Everyones' hair became glitzy, the very air sparkled. It was magical. Now I think I am certifiably in-sane. Who needs drugs when you can have fiber. Sometimes all I want is to look at it. Dream of the roving it could be, the yarn, the nothing. I just could lay it all out and roll in it. . The thought of it is sometimes better than doing anything with it. Thank God no one reads this. I would be so embarrassed.

Well I think that fall is on the way. And believe it or not I am happy about that. It somehow brings on a feeling of nesting for me and that induces that knitting fever. I am knitting my first sweater. I have tried before but life threw me a curve ball and I totally lost where I was. So I have decided to make the pattern "Salt Peanuts" by Veronik Avery out of the Spring 2004 issue of interweave knits. I think that it is a classic style and it seems to be the perfect first sweater. Mine is in a cream cascade 220 yarn. It is knitting up nice and well that was the yarn that I had enough of to make a sweater so it's cream and I will live with it. I am about a 1/4 of the way up the back and my time line is to be able to where it by the 21 of september. That seems a reasonable amount of time to accomplish this. If I don't put a time line on myself it will never get done.

I have joined a womens group out here in the mountains of paradise. We have only met once and will meet again on this saturday. I am happy to make conections with some strong women but I think maybe we have to find that strength with each other. To be silent in your heart and listen inbetween the sounds is true listening. I read that from Carlos Castenada's book a "seperate reality". Haven't read that since I was kid but ran across that blurb not to long ago. I will like this group and am excited to see where it goes. Maybe I can get them knitting.

Well the clouds are swallowing the mountains . A fine mist desending upon us like magic. I sometimes wonder if people realize they are in this mountain range when they drive through in the winter. You can go day's withoput seeing them and the one day the clouds lift and it's a new world. Amazing. I hope that winter doesn't drag on too long and swallow me. Nesting is one thing, disappearing is another. I think some people never come back. They lose their minds in the snow and can't get them back. It is truely an unforgiving enviroment out here. Not many paople make it. I see all these fancy homes that are lived in for a week or two each summer then abandon in the cold. Giant wooden dinasours on the landscape. I am ready for this. Autumn, deep colors, rich food, warm wine, tons of wool. (wine after knitting, I learned the hard way)

Now I am ready to weave

So I haven't done much of anything lately as far as knitting goes. I did manage to work with the drop spindle while camping this weekend. I spun some lilac colored merino wool. Was working really consistently as far as tension a size. Only problem was no shade and was on the shore of the lake and got way to hot to continue. Had to just get in the water and cool off.

Have rented a book from the Livingston library on Navajo weaving. It is a basic manual on how to build your own loom and basic weaving instructions and definitions. I am excited to give it a try. I thought for my fortieth year I would build the loom and try a tapestry. I would love to dive in and make a huge beautiful rug, but hey, lets get real here. I need to learn how to weave first. And of course I am on my own in teaching that to myself. Wish me luck. I also have to figure out the camera and putting pictures here and on raverly. I hope to chronicle my endeavor. My hope is that I will experience the oneness with the loom and have inspiration for my first project come out of that. But making a rug would be the best.

Oh what a week this has been. I am so ready to be done with this job and have the energy to really knit again. I have so many half finished or even just started projects that NEED me to finish them. The collective energy in my little village is very intense right now. Not all bad but a little overwhelming. This really is the best place for me to live. I just want to be at home and melt into the mountains around me. I am seeing knitting patterns in nature and want so badly to find the expression. How far can knitting go? Stay tuned!

Wish me Luck!!!

So I have had a weekend. Have been knitting the tam. It actually has hooked me and I can't wait to see it done. Hats are my favorite and by the way the colors are coming together I already have an idea of who would love this hat for christmas. Thinking ahead. If I stay on task I will have some nice gifts for people this year. I always wait till it's almost here and can never pull off all my ideas. This is the year to do it. I quit one of mty jobs Yeah!!!! I am so relieved. I gave till June 30th. That seems ample time to find someone to replace me. Not that it's a specialized job just finding another warm body to step in is the hard part. Not much of an employee pool out here. This ,hopefully, will work out so that I have more time to spend with the boy's and more time to devote to m,y art. Whatever that is at the moment. I am feeling the need to get a canvas together. I have that wave swelling inside and have not felt it for years. I mean YEARS. So I want to be prepared for when it hits the shore. It feels like a biggy. Well am going to go soak in tub and mentally prepare myself to get to work. I'll find out how well my notice went over. I was kinda chicken shit about it and put it in a card and shoved it into the owners reciept bag. ish me luck!

So another rainy day in Paradise. I suppose this would make it a good day for knitting and spinning. I do have high hopes of working on the felt bag but for some reason am totally discouraged by the looks of it right now. The color I like the best has run out. Actually ran out fast it was the hand spun in a beautiful muted, smokey type blue. The rest so far is yellow but will have to swwitch to another color soon. I guess you could say I "mis-calculated" what I would need. I just eyeball stuff. Especially bags that I am making up and hope they organically come together in a cool way. More then anything I hate thinking things out in knitting. It is my release from the rest of the world and the way that works. I am so detail oriented that I can almost go backwards. For some reason the bags move away from that and float on some ethereal plane. A plane wear no rules apply. One where only needles and wool and hope exist. Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy detailed patterns and cables knitting but my bags are different. They are these vessels and before someone uses them they are only pure possibility. It is not the walls that make a room but the space in between. Just like the body it is the movement of space in between even the smallest cells that create the shape. Pure potentiallity. Thats how I feel about the bags. I might change my mind about this when they put me in the padded room for these wierd analogys I have. Well time to clean up and take the boy's to "town". They are bored and I can knit anywhere.

I can't believe I am doing this

This is the beginning of what I don't know. Project of the moment is a felt purse. Using 13 mile organic wool. Some hand-spun, some mill spun. Mixing that with some wonderful baby mohair I bought at the LYS in Bozeman. This, I am hoping, will have a more tailored shape than previous bags. I started with a bag of love for a gift.That inspired me to make more, never knowing for sure how the end will turn out. Hopefully I've noticed enough variables to have a little more predictability with this one. I'm also venturing out into the world of massage therapy again. I took the last four years off, and am wondering if I should go for it. Which, I tell you is a bigger bite than then I have ever done. I also want to get this idea of fiber arts off into the world too. Found a local graphic artist( which in my community with no population count is a freakin' miracle) to help me design some cards and brochures. Oh boy here we go. One hour to my appointment and I am totally unprepared. I guess I work best under pressure.